Field of Screams
by Emmy131
Summary: “One more time, I am going to beg you to not make me do this,” Bella turned to appeal to Edward, but he was grinning, ecstatic, as he gazed into the darkness ahead. A human Halloween experience for Bella leads to lots of screaming...Two parts.
1. Chapter 1

Hello! This is the result of me watching the Travel Channel, on which there was a show about the top scariest Halloween walk throughs in the US. It gave me this huge craving for scary Halloween stuff...and now, of course, I have to wait a month. SO, I wrote this, based on the local place that pretty much everyone in my high school goes to, with not only a walk through called Field of Screams but also a Haunted Hayride and another walk through called Village of the Dead--which I deemed inappropriate for this story, in light of the Cullens'...unique situation. I'll probably write a second part to it, because it kind of needs one, as you'll find out; _however_, I am only posting it on fanfiction _if _you people review. If you liked it, hated it, caught a million typos, have constructive criticism--anything. Really, it's insane how many people read and don't review...and that's what encourages people to post more. Enjoy!

Field of Screams

Bella bit her lip anxiously, squinting through the cold night air at the lopsided sign above her, which was smeared with what looked disturbingly like blood. For once it wasn't raining, but it was no warm Phoenix autumn.

"Okay, one more time, I am going to beg you to not make me do this," she turned to appeal to Edward—but no such luck; he was grinning, ecstatic, as he gazed into the darkness ahead.

"This is so great!" Emmett cackled, bounding ahead of the rest of them, his pale skin glowing in the dark like a beacon and making him and the rest of the Cullens look even more ethereal than usual. Rosalie rolled her eyes, delicately picking her way over the muddy ground, somehow managing not to touch a single person as she slid through the crowd after her husband.

Alice was bouncing on her toes delightedly. "I've always wanted to do one of these!" She sang, grabbing Jasper's arm and tugging him along as she skipped forward. He glanced back at the rest of the group, shrugging tolerantly.

"Edward, really," Bella pleaded, "this is one human experience I do _not _need. I swear. Pinky swear!" She poked her pinky out desperately, but Edward just chuckled and took her hand in his, ignoring the proffered truce.

"This will be fun," he touched her nose, wrapping a reassuring arm around her shoulders. "I promise I won't let anything hurt you." His grin widened as he added this, and he began to pull her gently along.

"I won't be rational, Edward! My mind won't be able to comprehend that I'm not in any true danger. That's the whole point of these things—they make you forget that there's no real threat."

Bella looked again at the sign as they passed under it:

FIELD OF SCREAMS

She hated screaming in front of the Cullens.

"So, let's run through this one more time. You want me to have a quote _normal _unquote Halloween as a human, so you are forcing me into a cornfield maze in which there are fifty people in terrifying costumes and makeup waiting to pop out from the darkness and make me unable to sleep for a week?"

Edward chortled quietly. "That about sums it up, yes."

"Twisted vampire logic," Bella muttered, only half to herself. She glanced warily around at the masses of teenagers, adults, and even children, all of whom looked excited. Why in the world would anyone come to this voluntarily?

Sick freaks.

"Come on, Bella—it'll be fun!" Alice popped up right next to Bella, who just barely managed to stifle a scream—she'd be doing quite enough screaming in the next couple of hours. Jasper emerged silently from around a corner, obviously suppressing a smile at the alarmed expression on Bella's face.

"Boo!" Emmett, having crept up undetected behind Bella and Edward, leapt in front of the former, his face twisted into a strangely comical, yet undeniably frightening expression.

"Agh!" Bella shrieked, then quickly clapped a hand over her mouth. "Crap!" She flung her hands into the air, completely disgusted with herself. "I promised myself I wouldn't scream until we actually got into the maze."

Standing outside the maze in line, Alice and Emmett simply couldn't keep still. Bella had never noticed that similarity between them before—until now, of course, when she had to tolerate both of them at once. Rosalie wore an expression of annoyance and impatience; Jasper simply looked amused. Edward didn't seem to notice either of them—he played absentmindedly with Bella's hair, thoughtfully listening to the shrill screams that pierced the night air.

"I hope this is really really really scary," Alice giggled, once again bouncing on the balls of her dainty little feet.

"Alice," Bella interjected, her face incredulous, "how do you expect to be scared by fragile humans in face paint when you have faced bloodthirsty monsters bent on killing you?"

"I could say the same for you," Alice grinned smugly as she watched the dubious expression on Bella's face melt into irritation.

"I am not an indestructible vampire," Bella reminded her, pressing her lips together.

"Fortunately, you just so happen to have right next to you an indestructible vampire who essentially exists for the sole purpose of protecting you." Alice was now inexplicably dancing around Jasper in tight circles.

"But these people are trained to scare you out of your mind, and once that happens, I'm not going to remember that," Bella said, chewing her bottom lip as she struggled to explain her fear.

"Well then, maybe I'll forget that little detail about me being indestructible," Alice replied cheerily, still skipping around her husband. Jasper flung his arm out and caught her around the waist, pulling her into him and kissing the top of her head.

Bella shook her head. "I can't win."

"We're almost there!" Emmett cried gleefully, towering over the rest of the teenagers in line as he gazed at the entrance to the maze. He was right—they were only about fifteen people away, and they were being sent into the maze in groups of about five. Bella wondered why this was. To protect each other, maybe? So that if a couple people were grabbed and eaten, the survivors could report this?

She tried to push these ridiculous thoughts out of her mind. No one would eat her while Edward was with her. Bella repeated this like a mantra in her head. 'I won't get eaten, I won't get eaten, I won't get eaten…'

"Emmett," Rosalie growled, startling Bella out of her zombie-like trance. "You. Are. Embarrassing. Me."

Bella glanced toward Emmett, who had taken it upon himself to loom over the worker who was letting people into the maze. The guy, clad in a black cloak and a red devil mask complete with horns and a trident, was bravely attempting to ignore the presence of the huge, muscled vampire behind him.

"MWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA," Emmett boomed suddenly, making the devil dude jump about two feet into the air. Bella also noticed four freshmen screech shrilly, clutching each other and stumbling in their haste to get away from Emmett. The devil guy, who appeared to be trembling as he stared up into Emmett's gleaming black eyes, quickly took a couple steps back before squeaking, "Go ahead, go ahead. Your turn."

Bella looked wildly about and noticed that they were indeed at the head of the line. Edward squeezed her hand comfortingly and smiled down at her as she shivered.

"There's one thing you need to know before you go in there," a male voice said from beside her. Bella glanced over at the people who were coming back from the exit of the maze, all looking dazed and vaguely horrified, some with their eyes squeezed shut, being coaxed forward by their friends. A sophomore from Forks High was looking meaningfully at her, his eyes skimming over the Cullens.

"What?" She asked, perplexed. "What's that?"

"They go for the first and last in the group." He smirked as Bella glanced behind her, eyes wide—she and Edward were the first of the Cullens. Alice and Jasper were behind them, Alice bobbing up and down impatiently as she waited for them to enter the maze and Jasper finally displaying a mild interest in the horrors that awaited them.

"WOOOOOH—" Emmett began cheering wildly, but cut himself off with an "_Ouch_!" when Rosalie elbowed him in the stomach. They were at the end of the group—the devil guy replaced the rope at the mouth to the maze as soon as they entered.

Bella winced as more screams echoed through the maze. Edward led her gently forward into the misty darkness, his cold hand still around hers, walking right next to her in the narrow path through the cornfield.

_I won't get eaten, I won't get eaten, I won't get eaten…_

Once again, please, please review!


	2. Chapter 2

Bella was walking as slowly as humanly possible, wondering if there was any possibility that the people waiting to jump out at her might get so tired waiting that they decided not to scare the living daylights out of her after all.

Edward seemed content with Bella's impossibly slow pace, but the rest of the Cullens obviously were not.

"Bellaaaaaa," Alice grumbled from behind them, her voice too perfect and melodic to sound truly aggravated. "Walk much slower and _I'll_ be the only thing you need to be scared of."

This statement got Bella to actually crack a smile, albeit a disbelieving one. Just the thought of little Alice, armed only with a curling iron…

Oh.

Bella's smile disappeared. She had forgotten about that particularly frightening side of Alice—the side that was never satiated when it came to makeovers.

"What is _taking_ so long?" Emmett moaned impatiently, his white face appearing over Alice's shoulder as Bella glanced back.

"Yes, it's probably best just to get this over with as quickly as possible," Rosalie added, sounding completely and utterly uninterested.

"You know, the slower we go the more time they have to get ready to jump out at us," Jasper pointed out easily, his velvety voice moving closer to Bella's ear as their group compressed tightly.

Bella shuddered and squeezed Edward's hand so hard she thought she might be cutting off her circulation. He didn't even seem to notice—although Bella was positive he noticed her sweating palm. How embarrassing.

They continued to walk in silence, slightly faster now—though not by much; Bella was dragging her feet in the soft dirt, desperate to delay the inevitable. The path was inescapably, alarmingly dark, and mist swirled around their ankles—generated, no doubt, by a cheap fog machine, but threatening nonetheless. Bella did not like this dark silence at all: it seemed like these demonic actors were lulling them into a false sense of security.

"Edward," Bella whispered, her breath gusting into the coldness in front of her, "don't you think th—AHHHHHHH!"

A face dripping in blood had appeared right in front of Bella and Edward, its eyes rolling and tongue lolling gruesomely as it shrieked maniacally at them.

Extremely high pitched, almost musical screams rent the air—Bella was sure her ears would pop with the sound—Rosalie seemed to be shrieking uncontrollably, while Alice's screams were riddled with giggles; Jasper hissed a few expletives close to Bella's ear as another disturbingly inhuman face emerged from the long stalks…and above it all, Bella could hear Emmett's deep, jovial voice, asking for his demon's phone number.

The attack ended almost as quickly as it had begun—the demons melted back into the corn stalks, Emmett's demon with an odd mixture of disgust and frustration clearly evident on his face behind the fake blood.

Rosalie was gasping for unneeded air as she clutched Emmett's thick arm; Alice was giggling uncontrollably as Jasper frowned, his expression chagrined.

"I cannot—believe—you made me do this," Bella panted, both of her hands latched in a death grip to Edward's fingers. She glanced up, narrowing her eyes at Edward, who was obviously suppressing laughter. "You are so going to pay," she promised—but her threat didn't sound nearly as ominous as she hoped it would, due to an unfortunate incident involving someone popping out from behind an enormous green spider web.

They were only about three quarters of the way through the maze when Bella felt it—someone's hand creeping up her back. As if this fact wasn't bad enough, they had just entered a pitch-black shed, and Bella couldn't even see her hand in front of her face.

Actually, she hadn't tried to see her hand in front of her face; they were both still clamped to Edward's hand. But the darkness was obvious—it was so oppressive that even the Cullens were stumbling, bumping into walls as they attempted to navigate their way out.

Bella slowly reached behind her, praying that her fingers wouldn't make contact with anybody—that she had just imagined those fingers…

No such luck.

"AHHHHHHH!" Bella screamed so loudly that she could feel Edward jump beside her; the whole shed seemed to ring with the noise.

"Bella?" Edward asked quickly, drawing her closer. "Bella, what is it?

"Someone—touched—me—oh—crap—" Bella wasn't used to hyperventilating, but she imagined that what she was doing now was somewhat similar.

"Um…Bella?" It was Emmett, his voice startlingly close to Bella's ear.

Bella was still panting as hard as if she had just run a marathon. "Yes—Emmett?" She managed.

"That was me you just touched."

Bella's breathing slowed; she loosened her suffocating grasp on Edward's hand. "Oh…oh. So you were the one who touched me before?"

"What? No."

Bella froze. The rest of the Cullens stopped too, trying in vain to squint through the darkness. Bella realized that someone behind her was breathing on her neck…

"AHHHHHHHH!" Bella shrieked a second time—and before she could stop herself, before she could remind herself that it wasn't real, her hand had whipped out and punched someone in the face. Actually, it felt like someone's eye socket.

"_OW_" The person cried, and all of a sudden welcoming light flooded the shed—the newcomer had a flashlight.

Alice burst into another fit of giggles, and this time Emmett and Edward joined her—Emmett's booming laugh resonated throughout the whole shed, and Edward was trying in vain to suppress his quiet laughter.

The actor Bella had just slapped was covered in fur from head to toe: a werewolf. He was squinting at them, rubbing his right eye. "What was that for?" He protested, indignant. "You're not supposed to touch the actors!"

"I am so sorry—I just—I didn't even—" Bella subsided into mortified silence as the Cullens laughed harder than ever.

Edward drew Bella back to him, beginning to walk again. "Our sincerest apologies—now if you'll excuse us…"

They continued through the shed out into the moonlight, Bella's furious blush exposed in its soft beams.


End file.
